A Kind of Hush (10 page)

The voice on the phone said, 'You've got something that we want, we've got something that you want. I'll ring later and we'll talk trade.' Then they hung up.

They must have followed us and waited downstairs,' said Tony.

The car could only have come through the car park. We got to the Chinky's and Wivva and me were ordering, Si went outside for a slash, we heard a motor pull up, a door banged, and it screamed off. We rushed out and the Merc was bombing through the car park and away. We ran straight back here.'

The phone rang again, Mick answered it. After a couple of minutes he put it down and said, Tonight, Highbury Fields, right in the middle, three o'clock. Only two of us can go.'

Chris went to the phone as I said, 'You and me, Mick?'

'I think so,' he said.

Chris came back and said, 'Do what you have to, I'll catch you later,' and left.

Me and Mick took the Toyota and got there at two-thirty, we sat back and waited. The others had left before us in the van. The plan was for them to park over the
other side of Holloway Road, come over to the fields one by one and hide themselves away until they were needed. We hoped that they were there.

Fucking hell!' said Mick as a frozen foods delivery lorry pulled up and parked, blocking our view. 'What a place for that tosser to pick for an overnight stop.'

We pulled a little further up the road and settled back again. On the dot of three the Merc appeared.

'I'll go,' I said.

Together or not at all,' said Mick.

The Merc pulled up on the kerb by the grass some fifty yards away from us, one bloke got out. Mick climbed out and looked at him. He nodded and another guy got out. They started to walk towards the middle of the green. I stuffed the diary inside my jacket and got out. We walked over to meet them.

'You got it, kids?' asked the first guy.

'Got what?' said Mick.

'The book, boy,' said the man.

'The book you got off of Tommy,' said the man. 'He shouldn't have had it and we know that you've got it. So give it to me and we can all go home.'

'Where's Si?' said Mick.

'In the motor, son,' he said.

'Show me,' said Mick.

'No, book first,' said the bloke.

'No way,' said Mick. 'Si first.'

The guy looked at Mick carefully and said, 'Got it with you?'

'It's around,' said Mick. I was fucking glad he was doing the talking.

'In the motor is it?'

'Si first,' said Mick.

'He's around,' said the guy. This was getting fucking stupid I thought. One of us had to break first.

The guy looked over my shoulder and said, 'It's not in the car then?'

'Who says?' said Mick.

'He does,' said the bloke and nodded towards our car. We turned and saw a geezer standing by the open driver's door shaking his head, two more were walking towards us.

'Open the jacket, boy,' he said to me and reached out. Mick grabbed his arm and twisted, the bloke just shrugged him off and he fell on his back.

Then all hell let loose. Suddenly, as though they had been down holes in the ground, the other boys jumped up screaming and piled into the two guys with us. They'd been lying on the grass, in the dark all this time and no one had seen them.

The three other blokes came at us from behind, tearing into us. I caught something from one of them across the face, dunno what it was, but it felt that it had taken half my face away. I was numb all over the left side. I staggered and fell back.

'Leather jacket! Get the one with the leather jacket!' one of the goons yelled and two blokes jumped at me. I tried to scramble away thinking to myself, we're getting caned, we've had it, they're gonna kill us. Mick slammed me to one side and threw- himself at the goons that were after me. They all fell in a heap.

Two more motors came screaming on to the grass, their headlights smashing the darkness to pieces. They skidded to a stop and blokes piled out of them.

'Run!' I screamed. 'There's more of them!'

But we couldn't. They had us. I took out the diary ready to give it up.

The new blokes came hammering over towards us, bye bye world I thought. But they started to tear the goons apart. We couldn't believe it. We sat and watched in amazement as they pole-axed one, then another. Bodies were all over the place.

One of Gus's blokes managed to get back to the Merc and start it up, the guy next to me let out a loud screeching whistle. The frozen foods lorry that had blocked mine and Mick's view earlier started up, slammed into gear and shot forwards towards the Merc. It smashed into its front, stopping it dead, the guy inside came flying through the windscreen.

'Nice one,' said a voice next to me. I turned and looked into the smiling face of Chris.

'What took you so long?' I said, greatly relieved that he was still there. I was holding my throbbing face and trying to grin. Still clutched tightly in my hand was the diary.

'Sorry mate, had to make some arrangements,' he said with a wink, then added, 'move it! Let's get the fuck out of here and take that scum from the Merc with us.' We lifted the bloke out through the windscreen and threw him in the back of the lorry. We then quickly checked the Merc over - no Si.

The lorry pulled away and all of Chris's blokes disappeared as quickly as they had arrived, leaving some very beat-up bodies on the grass. Chris told Wivva and the others where to meet us and they ran off to get the van; he then climbed into the Toyota with Mick, Tony and me and we moved off after the truck. I sat very 
quietly in the back while Chris told Mick where to go.

This can't be happening, I thought. Stuff like this only happens in the movies. I tried to put it all in some sort of order. My face hurt like hell and I could feel the blood running down my neck and into my T-shirt.

I must have dozed off, because the next thing that I remember was waking up in what looked like a lorry park. Unhitched trailers were everywhere. Behind me was Mick's van, it was empty. Next to me was the lorry that had wiped out the Merc. I got out, walked over and checked the cab. No one home. I caught a glance at myself in the side mirror, I nearly shit a brick. The whole of the left side of my face was a bright red and running along my jaw line was a long cut covered with thick dried blood. Trails of blood had run down my neck, under the collar of my leather jacket and soaked the left shoulder of my T-shirt. I was really pissed off to see a long jagged tear running down the right arm of my new leather jacket.

I heard a noise from the back of the lorry so I walked around and pulled the door open. Everyone was inside.

'Oh, sleeping beauty's awake,' said Mick. 'How're you feeling?'

'Bit of an 'eadache,' I said. 'But other than that okay. How long was I out?'

'Only about an hour,' he said. 'You looked so peaceful we thought we'd leave you. Climb up and join the fun.'

I climbed in and looked at everyone. I'd never seen so many bumps, bruises and cuts all in one place at the same time.

'Good job you got there,' Wivva was saying to Chris. 'Otherwise I would have killed them.'

Mick laughed and brought me up to date.

'Chris called one of his friends from my place last night and set it up for some people to help us out. Thank fuck he did, because those scumbags had us well and truly beaten.'

'So even this lorry belongs to Chris? , I said.

'It's my cousin's,' said Chris. 'The back's handy, we can keep the shitbag here for months if we want to. It's insulated. It's a freezer truck so no sounds, and if this turd gets stroppy,' he said, nodding towards the bloke that we had picked up, 'then we just switch on the motor, shut the doors and freeze his fucking bollocks off.'

'Now we wait for the creep to wake up so we ask him about Si,' said Mick. 'We'll also find out if he's the one who's gonna talk to the Old Bill. That bit might take a bit of persuading though,' he said with a wink.

'Alan should have been here for this,' I said. 'He'd have had this shit talking in no time.'

'Leave it to me,' said Wivva as he pulled out the shotgun and started spinning it like he was John Wayne or something.

'I hope that ain't loaded,' said Chris.

'Course it ai . . .' Wivva didn't finish because the gun went off, the pellets whizzing past our ears and out of the open doors. We threw ourselves to the floor, covering our heads with our arms.

The smoke cleared and we saw Wivva standing there with his eyes clamped tightly shut, holding on to the gun and shaking from head to foot. Chris jumped up and grabbed the gun.

'I think I'd better take that back now,' he said with a grin. We were all more than just a little relieved.

After a bit of 'friendly persuasion' the bloke gave us all 
that we needed on Si. He was supposed to ring Gus on his bleeper number when he'd got the diary and leave a message for him to ring home. He was then to take the book over to the Highbury house and wait for Gus to arrive later with Si.

The boy wasn't going to be hurt until the diary was safe in Gus's hands,' said the guy and added, 'for insurance.' If all went well, Gus would aim to get to his house by about four that afternoon.

'What if one of those that we left behind warns him?' I asked.

Chris laughed and said, 'Don't worry, they won't be in any mood to talk to anyone for at least twenty-four hours.' He then wrote down the number that the bloke had to ring and said, 'Let's go to Highbury, lads.'

We tied the bloke up in a sack, took his keys and left him in the corner. We then jumped out, slammed and locked the doors and drove off, switching on the lorry's freezer motor first.

It was still early. The only people about seemed to be the milkman and the paper boy, so we parked up around the corner and entered the house silently in twos. It was empty, so we decided to make ourselves at home.

Chris rang the bleeper number and left the message. I was lumbered with the job of preparing breakfast.

'Well, you are a chef,' said Mick.

The rest started to check out the house. Wivva found a wall safe in the front room and started to fuck about with the combination. Pete and Den found the sound system and tuned into Capital Gold, then they busied themselves with opening drawers and cupboards, checking out the contents. Chris and Mick found his office. There was so much there that Chris convinced Mick to leave it until after they had eaten. Tony took a shower. Tony always took showers, sometimes three or even four a day; it was a part of his problem and his way of dealing with his feelings of being dirty all the time.

After we had eaten, eggs, bacon, sausages, beans, fried bread, cake, biscuits, orange juice, coffee, tea, all of his fruit and anything else that we could find, we all decided to follow Tony's example and clean ourselves up. Thank 
fuck he had a big bathroom and plenty of towels, his washing bill after we had finished~was gonna cost him an arm and a leg.

I was very relieved to find that the cut on my face wasn't as bad as I had thought; in fact it was more of a scratch than a cut. Just like when you cut yourself shaving, loads of blood, but you're hard pressed to see where it's coming from. A wipe over, dab of disinfectant, and a plaster on the worst bit and I was fine.

Wivva went back to the safe while the rest of us went through the house bit by bit, leaving his office till last.

The radio was blaring out 'You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet' when we opened the door to his bedroom at the top of the house. Boy was that song right. It was by far the worst room in the house. We stood gobsmacked at what we saw. The ceiling was covered with mirrors, porno books and videos were everywhere. There was also a whole selection of sex aids, handcuffs, chains, even a couple of blow-up blondes were sitting in the corner, legs splayed, mouths agape. The whole room had also been sound-proofed. We didn't need much of an imagination to figure out why.

'Guess he must entertain a lot,' said Mick, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

'Filthy bastard!' said Chris. 'What makes people like this?'

On the table by the bed was a small brass chest, and inside was at least half a kilo of cocaine, plus spoons, tubes and cutters.

'That's a nice bit of snow,' said Mick and he took a snort from between pinched fingers, then rubbed his fingertips on his gums. He smiled, so we all, except for 
Chris, followed suit.

Big mistake.

Heads started to go fuzzy, brains began to lose control. Mick clicked on a combined telly and video and we saw a few seconds of a child porn film before we shut it down. The videos were stacked in order on shelves, each of them bearing the names of the people in them written on the box. I looked through them and found one with the MP's name on it.

'Why should he have the names on these?' I asked nobody in particular.

'Who knows why this shit does anything,' offered Mick.

'Could be blackmail meat,' suggested Chris. 'Look at those names, he's got each of them exactly where he wants them. I doubt if any of them even knew that they were being filmed. These look like master copies, for his use only. I'll bet he even uses them to impress his guests.'

Mick ripped off a padlock, opened a cupboard and whistled. Chris and me moved over to take a look. It was full of devil worship stuff, books on bestiality, paedophile contact magazines and very hard-core child porn.

'Caters for every need doesn't he?' said Mick, staring at the stuff. Chris picked up a pile of photos and flicked through them. He gagged and throwing them to the back of the cupboard pushed past us and rushed into the en suite bathroom. He vomited and heaved for at least five minutes before he came up for air.

'For fuck's sake,' he said, still choking, 'how can people do those sorts of things to kids? They've got to be evil, really fucking evil.'

Tony called us back to the bedroom.

'Look at this,' he said and switched the TV on again.

'We've seen it,' I said.

'Not this you haven't,' he said. 'I found it under the shelf with three others. They're snuff movies.'

'You what?' said Chris. He was still feeling more than a little fragile and I don't think he really wanted to know.

'Snuff movies,' repeated Tony. 'Y'know, it's when they kill someone for real and film it.'

'Oh, for God's sake!' moaned Chris. 'Doesn't it ever fucking end?'

We left the room, we couldn't wait for Gus to get home.

Wivva was still working on the safe. Come to think of it, he'd been working on that safe, on and off, ever since we'd got there and he was now getting the 'right hump' with it.

Chris took a look and said, 'No chance, you won't get into that through the front.'

He then went through the kitchen and into the garage to see if he could find something that could help. He came back with a club hammer, a crowbar and a few cold chisels. I think that he was happy to have found something to do that would keep his mind off the shit that he had seen upstairs. Anyway, keeping the noise down as much as possible and using the club hammer and crowbar, he ripped the safe clean out of the wall. He laid it on its face and started to cut away at the back with the hammer and cold chisel. It took over an hour before he could bend the panel down enough to take out what was inside. We could see that he'd done it before, he was very efficient.

While we watched, Pete and Den must have pushed 
something on the bookcase at the back of the room, because a whole section swung open revealing a fully stocked bar. The slag even had lager on draught. Needless to say, we made full use of it.

The safe was now empty and on the floor in front of it were piles of fifty-pound notes still in their bank wrappers.

'Loadsamoney!' Wivva shouted and started to count it.

There was another small book full of names. I flicked through it and recognised a few of them. I couldn't believe two of them, I'd watched and heard these people on radio and telly for years. I showed the others. They all agreed that the sooner the Old Bill started looking at this lot the better. Mick got his Rolex. It was exactly the same as mine.

'Must have got a job lot,' I said.

We made eight thousand, four hundred pounds each. Wivva had laid it out in nine neat piles.

There's one too many,' said Chris.

'No, you get a share,' said Mick.

Thanks, but there's still one too many,' he said again.

'Eight grand should buy a brilliant funeral and headstone for Alan,' said Mick.

Chris nodded, smiled and said, 'Nice one.'

We all sat down and started to discuss for the first time what it was that we were going to do. Until then I thought that we were going to get Si back, give Gus a good spanking and then piss off and leave him to the police. Chris said that we needed more than that. He said that if Gus was in with the locals and they were called in, then anything could happen, and if it wasn't the locals, then it seemed fair to expect him to have one or two very high 
contacts within the police, who could influence any investigation.

'We've got to let your briefs copper know then,' said Mick.

'We've got to get Si back first,' I said, 'and then we decide what to do.'

'Sounds good to me,' said Chris. 'We'll play it by ear until we know that Si's safe. But whatever we do, we make sure that he goes down for a very long time, even if it means calling the papers before we call the Bill.'

Everyone agreed.

I switched on the telly.
Neighbours
again. It seems that Harold has just been made an earl or a lord or something. I like Harold, he's good. I've often thought that he'd make a brilliant Oliver Hardy.

The afternoon was spent going through the office. It was full of equipment - typewriter, computer, fax, that sort of stuff. In the corner was a photocopier. 'Great,' said Chris and began making copies of the diary and address book. 'Insurance,' he said.

It seemed that the cash in the safe was for an investment. Gus was going to buy his way into a string of sex shops. He also had ledgers and books that showed that he was into loads of other things like car sales, escort services, mini cabs, betting shops, even a sweet shop and tobacconist in Peckham. He also fully owned Fotojoy UK. We learned a lot about the guy that day and with each new piece of information, we hated him more.

At half-past three I was looking through the blinds keeping an eye out for Gus. Up the road, still wrapped around a tree, was the burned out Granada that Alan had totalled. Tapes and barriers had been put around it by the 
police. A copper was standing beside it with his arms behind his back; he looked thoroughly pissed off. Also taped off was the place where Alan was found. We'd all drunk, snorted and smoked far too much.

A Ford Sierra cruised softly down the road from the top end and turned quietly into the drive. I motioned to the guys to be quiet. I could see two figures in the car. It stopped and the driver got out; it was Gus, it couldn't be anyone else. He walked up the road to where the copper was, stopped and started to talk to him.

'What the fuck's he up to?' Mick whispered in my ear.

The passenger door opened and the other guy got out, he opened the back door and dragged little Si out from under a blanket and took him into the garage. That's why Gus was talking to the copper, I thought, to keep his attention away from the house. Mick and Chris went into the kitchen and waited by the connecting door to the garage.

We heard the key turn in the lock and just as the door was about to be pushed open, Mick grabbed it and pulled hard. The guy came flying into the room head first and landed in a heap by the sink. Wivva hit him with the hammer knocking him spark out. Poor old Si just stood there crying buckets.

'He must be happy to see us,' said Mick. Then he took him to one side while we waited for Gus.

'Point to which door,' said Chris. I nodded and watched. Gus left the copper and walked back to the house. He calmly locked his motor, pushed the garage doors shut and walked up to the front door.

'Front door,' I hissed. Chris slipped behind it and Mick slid into an alcove on the other side.

The door opened, Gus walked in and pushed it shut behind him. He was folding his keys back up into their leather case when Mick said, 'Hi, Gus.' Gus turned and was about to shout when Chris whacked him full in the throat. He collapsed choking for air.

When he looked up we were all standing around him in a circle.

'Hi, Gus,' we said together, 'nice to meet you.'

Si had been handcuffed and had tape across his mouth. Chris gently removed it and with the key that he'd ripped from the chain on Gus's trousers, he undid the cuffs and started rubbing Si's wrists to get the circulation going.

'Did he hurt you son?' he asked.

'They slapped me around me a bit when they snatched me, but they've not touched me since. I'm starving hungry though, any nosh about?'

'You're all right,' said Chris with a laugh and tossed him an apple. 'I'll see what's left in the fridge.'

'Anything you want boys, anything, it's yours,' said Gus. He was still on the floor recovering from the smack in the throat.

'There's nothing you've got that we want,' I said.

'Money,' he said. 'There's money.'

'No, there ain't,' said Mick.

'There is,' he said. 'It's in the safe.'

'No there ain't,' said Wivva.

'There is, I tell you, there is.' He was looking worried.

'There ain't,' I said again. 'We took it ages ago. There's nothing in the safe now.' He began to panic.

'I can get you more,' he said.

'Can you?' asked Chris. 'How much?'

'We don't want his money,' I said, scowling at Chris.

'I was only asking, Stu. You can't blame a bloke for asking, can you?' he said.

'Knock it on the head you two,' said Mick, sensing that I was getting angry at Chris. He then turned to Gus and said, 'We don't want your stinking money. There's nothing you've got that we do want. Nothing at all.'

'Drugs then,' he said. 'Come on boys, you know how hard it is to get anything decent these days. Anything you want, I've got it.'

'Already got them,' said Wivva, going cross-eyed from the joint that he was puffing on. Underneath his arm was the brass chest. Gus saw it and swallowed hard. He had nothing else to offer.

'What do you want then?' he said. He was shaking from head to foot now.

'You,' said Wivva.

'You,' said Mick. Then one after another the rest of us said 'You'. He started to cry, Chris hit him again and he shut up.

We were going to get him to write a full confession, but his hands were shaking so much that he couldn't hold a pen. We tried to get him to talk into a tape-recorder but all he did was blubber and wail. He was making us all fucking angry. This big, powerful man was no more than a snivelling coward when it came to the crunch.

We dragged him and his pal up the stairs to his bedroom. We thought that if we took him there, we could somehow make him produce evidence that we needed to put him and his cronies away. We weren't thinking straight, the booze and drugs were making us lose control.

We all had ideas about what we wanted to do but no two ideas were the same. And none of us, by that time, was in any condition to discuss the matter.

Mick and me wrapped a carpet around Gus's pal and dumped him in the corner with the two blow-ups. Chris and Wivva were holding Gus down on his bed.

Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion, so we all took another snort of coke, thinking that it would wake us up. It didn't. Cannabis, coke and alcohol just don't mix. We walked around like zombies, everything was going on automatic. We all had just one thought, and that thought was Gus and what we could do to him.